History viewed from the side: Future Directions for Historical Representations Using 3D Environments

Historians, as a rule, make bad futurists. Their object of concern is the past. And more to the point, their experience suggests that would-be prophets more often get things wrong than right. That being said, in the context of history and computing, there is a case to be made that scholars should consider how current changes in communication technologies will transform future practice in the historical discipline. The purpose of this paper is to argue that if historians mean to appropriate the computer, and specifically 3D objects and 3D environments as media for representation, they will have to pay a specific price. They will need to revisit the aesthetics of their discipline. They will need to devise conventions to govern narration, representation and documentation for 3D-immersive environments, specifically virtual reality and augmented reality. This paper will explore two aesthetic innovations that potentially might be applied in 3D environments.

The first innovation is the sideshadow, a literary device that can be used to communicate that systems such as cities have the potential to evolve in multiple directions, while only selecting one. The sideshadow is a representation that complements the representation of history as it was. Its purpose is to suggest the possibility of alternate histories, paths of growth and change that could have been visited by a city, but were not.
The second innovation is the siderepresentation. Its purpose is to communicate that objects contained in a virtual environment are the product of interpretation. Different individuals will have different opinions on how a given object — such as a building — should be represented in a virtual environment. Conventions will need to be devised to communicate when a given object is a point of contention, and enable exploration of the differing perspectives available to them in a given virtual space.

John Bonnett is a Research Officer with the National Research Council of Canada. A historian by training, he recently completed a thesis devoted to the writings of Harold Innis, the Canadian communication theorist. He is also the principle developer of the 3D Virtual Buildings Project, an initiative designed to enable students to generate models of historic environments using 3D software, and to develop critical thinking skills via model construction. He is the chair of the Canadian Historical Association's committee for history and computing.